By Jagadish Dahal

For more than a decade, Yemen has demonstrated a lesson that regional powers have repeatedly failed to understand: military superiority does not necessarily translate into political control.

Saudi Arabia entered Yemen with overwhelming advantages—air power, money, advanced weapons, a coalition of regional partners and the support of the internationally recognised Yemeni government. Yet the Houthis, a movement that began as a relatively small force in northern Yemen, have survived years of war and are now mounting one of their most serious offensives in years.

The latest battlefield developments should therefore be understood not simply as another episode in Yemen’s long civil war, but as evidence of the structural weaknesses of the Saudi-backed camp.

The Houthis have captured the strategic Red Sea port of Mocha and made advances towards the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The Associated Press has also confirmed through officials from both sides that the movement took control of the strategically important Mayun Island. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has faced missile and drone attacks against energy infrastructure in its southern provinces.

Saudi Arabia also temporarily shut its East-West oil pipeline after drone attacks that Saudi and Iraqi authorities said were launched from Iraq. Although regional officials have alleged coordination between the Houthis and Iran-backed Iraqi militias, responsibility has not been conclusively established. According to International Energy Agency figures cited by the Associated Press, Saudi oil exports through the pipeline’s Red Sea terminus had risen to more than five million barrels per day by early June, underscoring its importance amid the wider regional conflict.

The question, therefore, is no longer simply whether Saudi Arabia can defeat the Houthis militarily. It is whether Riyadh can achieve a political outcome in Yemen that its military intervention has failed to produce.

Yemen Has Never Been an Easy Country to Control

The strategic problem begins with Yemen itself.

Yemen has a larger population than any individual Gulf monarchy and possesses a geography that makes outside military control extraordinarily difficult. Its mountains, tribal structures, political divisions and long coastline have historically made Yemen resistant to centralised foreign control.

For years, influential actors in the Gulf viewed a politically unstable or hostile Yemen as a security threat. Saudi Arabia in particular has sought a Yemeni government capable of protecting its southern border and limiting the influence of hostile regional powers.

But the pursuit of a Yemen permanently dependent on external powers has repeatedly collided with the country’s complicated internal politics.

The fall of Ali Abdullah Saleh opened a period of political upheaval. During the subsequent transition, the Islah movement became an important political and military actor. The UAE increasingly treated the party as an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood and supported forces hostile to it, while Saudi Arabia maintained a more ambivalent relationship, alternating between suspicion and pragmatic cooperation.

The Houthis, then allied with military units and political networks loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, seized Sanaa in 2014. That alliance later collapsed, culminating in Saleh’s death at Houthi hands in 2017. Iran subsequently became an important source of military and political support for the movement, although the Houthis have retained their own organisational interests and decision-making structures.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE responded by supporting a variety of Yemeni factions.

And that decision created one of the fundamental weaknesses of the anti-Houthi camp.

One War, Too Many Armies

The Saudi-backed side was never a single army.

It was a collection of forces with different commanders, political loyalties and strategic objectives. Some were aligned with the internationally recognised government. Others were linked to tribal networks, local power brokers or southern separatist ambitions.

The UAE supported forces including the Southern Transitional Council and formations such as the Giants Brigades. Saudi Arabia backed other formations and built its own networks of influence.

The result was a coalition that could cooperate against the Houthis at certain moments but could not necessarily agree on what Yemen should look like after the war.

The Houthis, by contrast, developed a far more centralised military and political command structure.

This distinction matters enormously on the battlefield.

A fragmented coalition may possess more weapons and money than its opponent and still lose if its forces are pursuing different political objectives.

The UAE’s support for southern separatist forces was particularly problematic from Riyadh’s perspective. Abu Dhabi and Riyadh entered Yemen as partners, but their visions for the country were never identical. The UAE cultivated influence in southern Yemen, while Saudi Arabia generally preferred a unified Yemeni state capable of serving as a stable buffer along its border.

Those competing interests eventually weakened the very coalition that Saudi Arabia had assembled to defeat the Houthis.

The UAE’s subsequent withdrawal of financial and military support further exposed these divisions. Recent reporting by The Guardian noted that southern forces had refused to fight outside their own region, while the internationally recognised government remained heavily dependent on external support.

Why the Houthis Have Been So Difficult to Defeat

There are several reasons.

First is command.

The Houthis have maintained a comparatively unified political and military structure. Their opponents have repeatedly struggled to coordinate forces operating under different chains of command.

Second is motivation.

Saudi-backed fighters are not necessarily fighting for the same political or ideological project. Many are local actors responding to local interests, political calculations or economic incentives.

The Houthis, meanwhile, have built a powerful ideological narrative around resistance to Saudi Arabia, the United States and Israel. Whether one agrees with that ideology is beside the point. It provides a degree of political motivation that money alone cannot easily reproduce.

Third is geography.

The Houthis have operated for years in some of Yemen’s most difficult terrain. Mountain warfare favours forces that know the territory and can survive without controlling every road, city or institution.

Fourth is the limits of air power.

Saudi Arabia has demonstrated enormous air superiority, but air power has repeatedly failed to translate into decisive political control. Bombing positions is easier than eliminating an organisation embedded within a society, particularly when that organisation can disperse its forces and retaliate asymmetrically.

The Houthis have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to take the war beyond Yemen’s borders through missiles, drones and attacks on Saudi infrastructure. Reuters reported in September that one recent wave struck an airbase and oil installations in southern Saudi Arabia and wounded dozens of people.

That has fundamentally altered the strategic calculation.

The Propaganda Problem

The Saudi-backed camp also faces a deeper political problem: credibility.

A government or coalition can spend enormous amounts of money on media campaigns, but propaganda cannot substitute for political legitimacy.

For a Yemeni fighter living through economic collapse, displacement and years of war, the question is not simply who possesses the most sophisticated weapons. It is also who appears to understand his grievances.

The Houthis have exploited this effectively.

Their anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric has become even more potent amid the Gaza war and the wider confrontation between Iran, Israel and the United States.

This has created a particularly difficult environment for Saudi Arabia and its allies. Riyadh has sought to distance itself from direct confrontation and concentrate on economic transformation and regional stability, but the wider regional conflict has repeatedly dragged the kingdom back towards Yemen.

The Houthis have understood this vulnerability.

The Red Sea Changes Everything

The latest offensive is particularly significant because Yemen’s geography gives the Houthis leverage far beyond the country’s borders.

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is one of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints. Control or disruption of the waterway can affect shipping between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean.

The capture of Mocha and Mayun Island therefore represents more than a battlefield victory inside Yemen. As the Associated Press observed in its reporting on the offensive, these gains give the movement a strategic foothold along one of the world’s most important shipping corridors, potentially increasing its leverage over international shipping and Saudi Arabia’s western export routes.

That leverage becomes even more important when the Strait of Hormuz is already under severe pressure.

Saudi Arabia has traditionally relied heavily on Hormuz for energy exports. Its East-West pipeline provides an alternative route to the Red Sea, allowing Saudi crude to bypass the Gulf chokepoint.

That alternative is now itself vulnerable.

The temporary shutdown of the pipeline following a drone attack demonstrates the strategic dilemma facing Riyadh: Saudi Arabia’s eastern and western export routes can no longer be treated as insulated from the wider regional conflict.

Oil markets have already reacted. Reuters reported that Brent crude surpassed $100 a barrel as concerns grew that both Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb could face prolonged disruption.

Saudi Arabia Is Not Collapsing, but Its Vulnerability Is Growing

It would be premature to describe Saudi Arabia as being on the verge of economic collapse.

The kingdom remains a major energy producer, possesses substantial financial resources and has powerful military and diplomatic relationships. Nor is there evidence that the destruction of Saudi infrastructure has already reduced global food production by half, as some claims circulating about the conflict suggest.

But that does not make the current situation insignificant.

Saudi Arabia is facing a strategic vulnerability that money cannot easily solve.

Its southern border is exposed. Its energy infrastructure can be targeted. Its maritime routes are under pressure. Its Yemeni allies remain divided. And the military campaign that began more than a decade ago has still not produced a decisive political settlement.

More importantly, the Houthis have demonstrated that they do not need to defeat Saudi Arabia conventionally.

They only need to make the cost of Saudi involvement unacceptable.

That is a very different definition of victory.

Pakistan Cannot Solve Saudi Arabia’s Yemen Problem

There is now increasing discussion about whether Pakistan could become more directly involved if the conflict expands into Saudi territory.

Pakistan’s defence minister has said that the recently signed Saudi-Pakistan-Türkiye defence arrangement could be activated if Saudi Arabia comes under attack. Reuters has also reported that Islamabad conveyed a Saudi warning to Tehran while seeking to prevent the confrontation from widening. Pakistani officials stressed that any military role would be defensive and limited to Saudi territory.

But external military assistance cannot resolve the fundamental problem in Yemen.

The conflict is not merely a contest between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis. It is a Yemeni political conflict layered with regional rivalries involving Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE, the United States and other actors.

More foreign troops may change the balance temporarily. They cannot manufacture a legitimate political settlement.

That is the lesson Saudi Arabia has learned the hard way.

The Real Saudi Setback

Saudi Arabia’s greatest defeat in Yemen is not the loss of a particular town, island or military position.

It is the failure of the assumption that overwhelming military and financial power could determine Yemen’s political future.

The Houthis survived years of bombing, economic pressure and international isolation. They have built military capabilities capable of threatening Saudi territory and have turned Yemen’s geography into a strategic weapon.

Meanwhile, the anti-Houthi coalition remains divided over the country’s political future.

The result is a war in which the stronger side has repeatedly struggled to convert power into victory.

Saudi Arabia can still change course.

It can continue escalating the war, risking greater attacks on its infrastructure and greater disruption to regional energy markets. Or it can recognise that Yemen cannot be permanently stabilised through a collection of externally sponsored armed factions.

A sustainable settlement will ultimately require a political framework that addresses Yemen’s competing centres of power rather than attempting to eliminate them militarily.

The alternative is a conflict that keeps expanding, from Yemen’s mountains to the Red Sea, from Bab el-Mandeb to Saudi energy infrastructure, and potentially into the wider Gulf.

Saudi Arabia may not be collapsing.

But Yemen has once again demonstrated that even the richest and most powerful state in the region can become strategically trapped in a war it cannot win on its own terms.

The author is a member of the Supreme Court Bar and has been practicing corporate law for around three decades.